Category Archives: Weekend Update!

A week ago Jen and I started watching the Netflix original show Peaky Blinders. Huh? You ask? What on Earth is Persnickety Biscuits? Well, good friend, Pesky Blunders is a 1920’s mob story with character depth, excellent music, and a fast moving plot. I am entirely convinced that if this show was named with some title more memorable than Pasty Blithers than the world would be very much aware of its stunning execution.

In full disclosure, not everyone loves Peachy Balloons. Sander was turned off by the parallel plots and the accents, which at times feel like they need subtitles. That said, if you have Netflix and you like dramatic crime, put Party Bingers on your short list. At the time of this post there are 12 episodes online, each about an hour long.

Long before Benedict Cumberbatch, Actor William Gillette made famous the world of Sherlock Holmes through his theatrical depictions. Quite a bit different from King Camp Gillette, creator of the face shaving razor of fame, William Gillette built a weird-sauce castle in CT made of fieldstone and eccentricity.

For years the external appearance of the castle turned me off. Frankly, it’s ugly. The fieldstone is quirky beyond my comfort level. Still, it’s considered a major CT tourist spot so I’ve had it on my list as something to see.

IT WAS AMAZING.

Honestly, the fieldstone facade was a major distraction from the real awesomeness: the beautifully carved wooden mechanisms that filled the house and the picturesque landscape spooning the Connecticut river.

All of the light switches, doors, door handles, etc were designed by Gillette and carved by his master woodworkers. No mechanism was duplicated, every one was unique and filled the house with a playful atmosphere. The tour guides were more than willing to demonstrate the operation of the mechanisms and the engineer in me loved it. Each new room had me on a scavenger hunt searching for clever mechanisms.

Unlike the external face of the castle most of the interior was wood, accented with stone set in colored grout. The attention to detail was obvious. Each component of the house had purpose from the uneven stonework of the chimney column (for planters) to the hanging decorative edging of the table designed as a playtoy for Gillette’s cats.

The Castle sits on a huge plot of land full of hiking trails. Gillette had a affinity for railroads so he built his own mini-railroad. The rails are mostly gone off the property but the retired rail passes make for wonderful trails including a train tunnel.

At the recommendation of Dr. Scott, Jen and I took Saturday to head east to New Windsor, NY to visit the sculpture garden Storm King. In addition to a ridiculously awesome estate name, this 550 acre garden located about an hour North of Manhattan sports over a hundred sculptures and stunningly beautiful vistas.

Menashe Kadishman, Suspended1977

Jen and I got there around 11:30, had a small picnic at their picnic tables and then got to walking. Within the last three years or so the park started renting bicycles to make travel easier, but they are absurdly priced at $40/rental. The park will not allow you to bring your own bikes. I’m sure that this rule is to make sure that no one mars their lawns with thin tires – but to me it mostly seemed overprotective.

While the large pieces were sprinkled across the landscape, most of the smaller sculptures were clustered around the centerpoint of the park: a beautiful little museum that housed a focal exhibit. The museum, being atop a hill, also provided what may have been the best views of the estate.

Perhaps the most exciting sculpture was Andy Goldsworthy’s Storm King Wall (1997-98). It was a five or so foot tall wall that wound its way in, out and around a row of trees then through a lake and up a hill.

To me, the artfulness of the piece was its embrace of surplus. The effort required to build this piece makes my brain hurt.

It took us about three hours to walk the landscape. The grounds were hardly flat, as I think you can tell from the pictures, so we were admittedly pretty tired after tromping around the landscape. They have a tram that anyone can hop on and hop off anytime, but we chose to walk since it was the perfect late summer day.

Mark Di Suvero – Jambalaya2002-06

Alexander Calder – The Arch1975

From central CT, its about 1h45m to Storm king – and well worth the trek. I would imagine that it would be particularly spectacular once the leaves start to change color. Try to get out there, it’s mega-fun. Thanks for the recommendation Dr. Scott!

Jen and my last stop on our Newport mansion tour was the Breakers. This was the summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt and is the quintessential gilded age mansion. The house is INSANE. Pretty much every surface is gold, silver, or platinum.

One thing Jen and I enjoyed about all the houses were their kitchens. The breakers was designed to be fire proof since the first version of the home burned down. The kitchen is testimony to that with its cooktop that has no exposed fire. The parties were so huge at these places that the broth pots couldn’t be moved once they were filled – they were far too heavy. So instead they had spigots on the bottom of the pot. Awesome!

It helped that all the pots and pans were beautiful copper. Although I’d hate to have to be the staff person to have to polish those up every night.

Overall, I strongly recommend you go check out the mansions of Newport. Of those that we saw, the only one I think I’d pass on next time around was the Chateau sur Meh. The other four are must-sees.

Also, all this talk of mansions has me thinking of new house names. I know that my final house shall be called “The Keep”. But if I end up owning an intermediate home – it’ll need a name. Any recommendations?

The Elms, the next stop on our mansion tour, includes a conservatory. Soo cool. Ever since my trip to Baltimore I have wanted a palm house or a conservatory. I was extremely stoked to find that The Elms had one. It was decorated with classic white tile and ornamented with superfluous fountains and cherubs (aside: cherubs are a lot weirder if you refer to them as stone babies). Ferns and Palms cascade out of elaborate stone flower pots. The room looks like it would be the perfect escape from New England winters.

The Elms also had a drawing room. And I learned that the name Drawing room actually comes from the word ‘Withdrawing’ – like relaxing. Stupid me always thought that people liked making sketches in drawing rooms.

Rosecliff was the third mansion on our list, and the only of the bunch that can still be used for functions.

This one features a massive ballroom and is far less of a house as much as a support structure for that single ballroom. In fact that main attraction has been featured in a number of movies for its abundant grandeur.

The coolest part of the building in my eyes was the painting of the coffered ballroom ceiling. It was painted to imitate a Roman or Grecian courtyard. The center painting panel was a blue sky, and all around the edges of the room smaller paintings showed flower filled sconces at a perspective that would hint at them decorating the pillars of an ancient Athenian courtyard. It was a cool effect.

Unfortunately, outside of a staircase that would make a king feel at home, the rest of the home was pretty blah. Think Motel 6, except from the gilded age.

The second mansion that Jen and I visited on our recent trip to Newport was the Marble House. I think this one might have been my favorite.

The House was owned by Alva Vanderbilt, who sounds like she was a fiery feminist with an aggressive willingness to upturn the table of tradition. The house was amazing. The highlights included an extremely cozy ‘small’ library, his and her sitting rooms, an imposing dining room complete with 75lb chairs, and a bedroom covered in purple marble that looked like a truck filled with precious metals had crashed into a cotton candy factory.

Again, no pictures allowed inside – but if you’re going to Newport make sure to keep Marble House on your list.

As celebration for the conclusion of my Ohio duties, Jen and I headed to Newport, RI this week for tours through some of the Newport Mansions. We bought passes for five of the mansions and visited them over the course of three days.

I’ll post a few pictures of the exteriors – unfortunately inside pictures are not allowed.

We started with the Chateau sur Mer, which was the largest of the mansions in the early history of Newport. As time went on, the owners of Chateau sur Mer sold property to persons who would ultimately build the mega-glorious mansions of Newport.

After visiting the other mansions, Jen and I jokingly referred to this one Chateau sur Meh. Not nearly as large or impressive. But this one did come with a personal tour which was a bit more interactive than the audio tours of the other mansions.

To anyone visiting the mansions for the first time, I would strongly recommend seeing this one first.